This is a first draft of my e-book edition of Buddhist Legends: Books 1–26 by Eugene Watson Burlingame. It was originally published as part of the Harvard Oriental Series and is now available in print from the Pali Text Society. The translation is in the public domain, although this e-book edition is strictly for free distribution.

This e-book edition contains the complete set of origin stories to the verses of the Dhammapada as found in the Pali commentaries. The original print publication contained summaries of each story along with an introduction and index.

The language style is very readable despite being close to one hundred years old. A few Dhamma terms are somewhat incorrectly translated, such as “returning thanks” instead of “rejoicing in merit” for anumodana. As with any old translation the reader should be cautious.

There are still many typos left over from the scanning process, although it is quite readable. The footnotes are especially error prone. Check back to this page for future updates. If you would like to share it with others, I'd request that you direct them to the link below so they will always be able to get the latest version.

Once I am confident that most of the errors have been corrected in the main body of the text I will release an epub version. Until then you can use Calibre to convert this one. The only difference will be the lack of imbedded Pali fonts.

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

I've just posted a second draft of this e-book. If you have the first one it is worth it to download the latest version. The diacritics are corrected in the main body of the text although the footnotes are still full of OCR problems. Other formatting things have been improved.

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725